December 11 - Guess I'm gonna have to guess again

Castle waits until Kate follows him into the kitchen before he opens the window casement with his thumbnail. He can hear her pulling creamer out of his fridge to add to the travel mug of coffee they left her place with this morning. He's supposed to be getting dressed, quickly, Castle, we're late, but he wants to get his gift first.

He stares inside the advent calendar.

It looks like a black swiss army knife.

Castle pulls it out, catches the rolled up photo that comes with it, but his eyes are on the rectangular device. Remote?

He flips it over right as Kate joins him in front of the dining room table, and reads the words printed into the grey plastic.

SpyFinder

"You did not," he laughs, lifting startled eyes to her.

She grins back, looking so pleased with herself, eyes shining. "Want the instructions?"

"Was does this - what is it for?"

"Wait, let me get the instructions. They're hilarious."

He watches her move towards the entryway where her bag is still on the floor, and now it's clear to him why she grabbed all that stuff when they left this morning. She pulls a thin booklet from her bag and comes back to him.

"Nice sweater," he says, taking the instructions and leering at her.

The verdant cashmere sets off the soft wave of her hair, the watermark of green in her brown eyes. She rolls her eyes at him. He proclaimed every single one of her other tops too sexy and proceeded to take them off this morning. It's his favorite trick. It never gets old.

To him anyway.

He drops his gaze back to the device in his hands, opens up the instruction manual she gave him and reads it aloud.

"'SpyFinder finds all hidden cameras - wireless or wired. Simple to use. Simply hold this spy finder up to your eye-'"

He stops when she giggles, gives her a look - this is serious, Beckett, - and then resumes reading.

"'Hold this spy finder up to your eye, push the button' - although, they've left out the comma, so I can't be certain it doesn't just say eye push-"

"Just read it," she laughs, drawing an arm around his waist on a hum.

"'Push the button, and search - that's all there is to it.'" He flips it over a few times, sees the circle of small red lights over the viewfinder at the top. "This is. . .I hope you didn't pay much for it."

She laughs again, takes it out of his hand. "It does actually work."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, try it. Come on. I know you want to."

"I still can't believe you're messing with me about this. There were actual hidden cameras in my house."

"You don't know that. We didn't find any. And well, now you'll always be able to check. Any time you get paranoid."

He lifts the SpyFinder to his face, hesitates only a second as she stands there, expectant and smiling. So he goes ahead and brings the viewfinder to his eye, scans the room with the device, the whole loft taken in with a strange and pinholed perspective this way.

The red lights don't go off. No spy cameras.

"See?" she says softly. "Just you and me, Castle. Now you want me to help you find something to wear?"

He quirks his lips as he lowers the SpyFinder. "Why, Detective Beckett. Was that a subtle way of saying you want me to take my pants off?"

"I do believe it was."

"Beckett," he stage whispers.

Kate jerks her head at the intrusion, glances over at him from her paperwork. "What?"

"It's boring."

"I know. Go home. I've just about wrapped this up."

"No, wait. Better idea."

She shakes her head. "No, Castle. I have work to do. Sit and be quiet, or head on out. My place."

His eyes are dancing, but he's totally ignoring her, isn't he?

"I got an idea. We should use my SpyFinder here. The break room, the bathroom, the janitor's closet. Figure out the safest places we can be consummate professionals."

She narrows her eyes at him, smells something lewd in that statement, but can't quite-

"Get it? It's a play on words. Consummate. Professionals."

She shoots him a disapproving glare and goes back to her paperwork.

After a few minutes, she feels him slink off, but she's afraid he hasn't actually left. Just relocated.

She needs to finish quickly, so she can get him out of here before he does any damage.

Beckett gets a summons on her phone from Esposito, frowns at the terse command.

Locker room. Get your ass down here.

Locker room?

She closes the file in front of her, slaps a post-it note reminder on it for tomorrow, then shuffles it to the back of the stack. But when she opens the next one and goes to check on the status of her warrant request, she gets another text.

From Ryan.

Men's locker room. This is freaking me out.

Freaking him out?

Kate sighs and stands up, minimizes her NYPD network portal, and then heads for the stairs.

She wonders if Castle is a part of this, or if he truly went home.

Huh.

That's. . .not good.

"Are you sure?"

Ryan's nod is so adamant that she's afraid he'll sprain something in his neck.

"Okay. So. . .Castle found a camera in the showerhead. With his SpyFinder."

Ah, the SpyFinder. Which was eighty bucks online, but she spent the money knowing that even if it's bogus, peace of mind is worth a lot. Plus the chance to finally laugh about it with him.

"He found a camera in the showers, Beckett." Esposito is growling as he stalks in front of the long row of mustard yellow lockers. The women's locker room had a face lift about ten years ago, but apparently the men's never did.

"He did, huh," she says slowly. "So. . .where is Castle right now?"

"Checking out the women's."

"What?"

"It's okay. It's empty."

She narrows her eyes at him, but just then, Castle comes bouncing through the door, giddiness on his face. She has to press her lips together to keep from smiling. It wouldn't be with him, it would be at him.

"Nothing. It's clear. Beckett! Did you see what I found? I spy with my little eye-spy-finder-"

"Castle. Let me see this camera you found," she interrupts. "I want a look at it."

"We left it in," Ryan answers. "Preserve the crime scene."

"It's not a crime scene," she growls, following Esposito as he wordlessly leads her back to the showers.

"Not yet," Castle chirps.

Chirps. He is entirely too happy about this.

She kind of likes it.

When Esposito gestures to the long row of partially-partitioned showerheads, she realizes someone is back here, at the far stall, the water running weakly down the drain. She turns and lifts an eye at Ryan - the one she figures should've known better by now - and he stammers with a blush.

"Uh. Just. . .don't look."

"You can look," Castle says. "It's just Franklin."

"Ew." She glares at him. "I don't wanna see Franklin naked."

"No, no," he laughs, a bright huff of air as he leans into her. "No, I mean. Franklin is a never-nude."

"Never-nude! Man, I loved that show." Ryan is high-fiving Castle with a beaming look.

"What show?" she gripes. "Let's get back to-"

"Jason Bateman, my alter ego. Come on. You've seen 'Arrested Development'. Haven't I made you watch it?"

"I've never seen it. Castle, the camera. Focus."

"Oh, it's in focus," he leers.

She rolls her eyes and turns to Esposito, the only one not sucked in by Castle's crazy vortex of endless pop culture references and terrible puns. "Espo."

"Here. Look." He steps up against the half-wall that blocks this shower from the next, and then reaches up to showerhead. She realizes it's halfway pulled out of the wall, and behind the rusted metal facing is a small, faintly rectangular piece of. . .black something.

"Huh."

"Yes!" Castle crows. "Look at that. That is not supposed to be there."

"A camera in a shower?" she muses. As she leans in closer, studying it, she can't fathom how that would be safe. Even if someone did sneak a camera into the guys' locker room, having it run behind the showerhead - just the moisture, the steam-

Oh. Ha.

"It's not a camera," she says.

"Of course it is-"

"It's not a camera," she laughs, reaching out for the black thing attached to the back of the showerhead. When she flicks her nail over it, she wrinkles her nose as some of the black comes off in her hands, disintegrating. "See?"

"What. . .what is that?"

"It's a dead insect. Maybe a roach. Beetle. Something."

"Oh, that is nasty." Ryan shudders and backs away.

Castle blinks slowly at her. "But. Does this mean - the SpyFinder doesn't work?"

Crap.

"It works," Esposito says forcefully. "It found a bug alright. Just a different kind of bug."

Kate presses her lips together, arches an eyebrow to see if that will fly.

Castle looks suspicious, but he studies the black SpyFinder in his hand and then seems to accept that. Probably because he wants to believe in the magical properties of the SpyFinder.

Kate gives Esposito a grateful flash of her eyes. He does a brisk head nod, flexes his fist as he crosses his arms.

"It works," she confirms, reaching out to turn Castle around. "But I think it's time for us to go home."

"Yeah," he says slowly, turning his head to look one more time. "Yeah, okay."

SpyFinder.

She leads him out of the men's locker room, and he glances back only once. Just when she thinks she's got him docilely following along, he grips her elbow and pulls her up short.

"Hey, wait."

She takes a breath, certain the whole illusion will unravel.

"Can we try out my Spy Finder in the sparring rooms? Espo and Ryan and I didn't get that far."

Kate rolls her eyes but sighs a reluctant agreement. "Sure, Castle. Let's go look."

"Awesome. I so hope there are cameras in there."

"Lot of sweaty men use that practice room, Castle."

He wrinkles his nose, dismisses that with a gesture of his hand. "I'd just fast forward."

She raises an eyebrow and he backpedals.

"Just until I got to yours. No one else's. Of course. Just you."

Uh-huh.